Administration sources indicated today that an impasse has been reached in the bilateral talks with the Soviet Union on a Mideast settlement. But they felt that if Washington and Moscow were as far apart as ever on a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, sufficient progress has been made in the talks nevertheless to warrant their continuation.
The gloomy assessment was made after studying the Soviet reply to a 13-point American proposal submitted to the Russians last month. The reply was delivered to Secretary of State William P. Rogers on June 17 by the Soviet charge d’affaires, Yuri Tcherniakov. Apparently drafted after Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei F. Gromyko’s Cairo meeting with President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt earlier this month, it indicated if anything a hardening of the Arab-Soviet line.
According to informed sources, the Soviet reply contained a detailed blueprint for a step-by-step Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories without exception–the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Sinai Peninsula. This was in direct contrast to the United States’ “package” proposal which was deliberately vague on territorial questions and called simply for “secure and recognized frontiers” that would not “reflect the weight of conquest.” The U.S. envisioned Arab-Israeli negotiations at some stage to work out the permanent frontiers.
The Soviet note made no mention of negotiations and insisted that a formal declaration of nonbelligerency could come only when the Israeli pull-back was complete. If recent reports that the Soviets had agreed in principle to the American concept of a “package” deal were correct, Moscow’s latest note represents a reversion to the idea of a phased withdrawal.
Other points in the Soviet note were said to be: Return of the Sharm el Sheikh strong point commanding the Straits of Tiran to a UN peace-keeping force without limiting Egyptian sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula; establishment of demilitarized zones astride Israel’s borders which, according to Moscow, would be those that existed prior to June, 1967. The proposal implied that Israel would have to accept demilitarization of part of its own territory and the restoration of the rights of Palestinian refugees as part of any “package” agreement. The Soviet note also reportedly downgraded the mission of the UN special envoy to the Middle East, Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring, who has been a key element in U.S. planning. His future responsibility as envisioned by the Russians would be to assist in defining the extent of the demilitarized zones.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
